Saturday, April 14, 2007 37 join RC helicopter competition in SRP
RADIO-CONTROLLED helicopters filled the sky yesterday at the South Road Properties as the Hirobo Cup Asia 2007 International RC Helicopter Competition opened shop.
Thirty-seven RC helicopter enthusiasts from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, Singapore, Korea and the Philippines are in Cebu for the competition.
However, only 36 out of 37 radio-controlled helicopters saw flight in yesterday’s first round.
In the F3C class, 13-year-old Choi Won Ho from Korea experienced difficulties with his helicopter.
“It was a glitch. There’s a problem, they’re still trying to fix it. Whether it is in the radio or the remote controller, we don’t know,” said Rene Avilla, the contest director.
Due to the setback, the results of the first round in the F3C class were not released. Ho’s helicopter will instead fly today prior to the start of the second round in order to complete the official results of the first round of the F3C class.
In the P3C class, it was Chan Kuo-Chan from Taiwan who came in first for round one. With a normalized score of 1,000, Kuo-Chan was closely followed by fellow Taiwanese Chen Kung-Hsiang with 943.98.
Brothers
The youngest competitor in the P3C class, 13-year-old Frederick Qing-Yuan Chong from Singapore ranked sixth, outdoing his older brother Walther Qing-Yuan. It was only a year ago that Frederick picked up the sport, he flew F3A airplanes since he was seven. From the Philippines, Justin Neri got fourth with 859.94. He is closely followed by Jeffrey Infante, who had 857.14.
Scores are determined through a certain set of maneuvers that each class is supposed to do. They get 10 points for every maneuver and are deducted 0.5 for every error. They get no points if they fail to perform a maneuver.
Aside from the glitch experienced by Ho, organizers did not experience other troubles. According to Avilla, competitors are doing fine as well.
“So far, they are doing very well. I did not expect that someone from the Philippines would be fourth. This is just the first round, I’m hoping that Neri will do better,” said Avilla.
Today marks the second day of the Cup. Competitors will fight to get into the top 10 ranks of their respective class in order to make it to the third round tomorrow. (STC Media Comm intern Elisabeth Baumgart)
